Government

Chile’s Student Protest Leaders Hope To Dismantle System From Inside

October 26, 2013 Jonathan Franklin, www.theguardian.com Create! Democracy, Government

Two years ago Giorgio Jackson was at the forefront of Chile's biggest protests since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship, when hundreds of thousands of students took to the streets in support of the right to free university education. Now the 26-year-old is running for election – one in a group of former student activists hoping to make the leap from the frontlines of street activism to those of congress. Presidential and congressional votes are set for 17 November, and polls suggest Jackson – an independent running under the slogan "Now is the time" – is likely to be elected. Two other activists, Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola – both from the Communist Youth party – are expected to be voted in too. "For those of us who fought for such a long time [for education] … it was important to be actors and not spectators," says Jackson.

Banal Justification For Directing US Surveillance At World Leaders

October 25, 2013 Kevin Gosztola, www.dissenter.firedoglake.com Educate! Government, NSA, Surveillance

Wiretapping and eavesdropping on world leaders may be required for American leaders to make the right decisions if one is solely concerned about private corporations with contracts whom rely on this snooping for profits. It may be required if one is a technocrat, who finds the software and hardware at their fingertips is an infallible solution to security. But if one recognizes that one can pay attention to news media in any country and ask people who are sympathetic to their questions for “strategic intelligence” and probably figure out what officials think they need to know without violating the privacy of anybody, it may be possible to not cling to this Anglo-centric notion that intelligence agencies are entitled to collect data on all the communications of every single person in the world, including world leaders.

Russell Brand May Have Started a Revolution Last Night

October 24, 2013 Neetzan Zimmerman, www.gawker.com Educate! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Human Rights, Media

Actor-slash-comedian-slash-Messiah Russell Brand, in his capacity as guest editor of the New Statesman's just-published revolution-themed issue, was invited to explain to Jeremy Paxman why anyone should listen to a man who has never voted in his life. "I don't get my authority from this preexisting paradigm which is quite narrow and only serves a few people," Russell responded. "I look elsewhere for alternatives that might be of service to humanity." And with that, the first shots of Russell's revolutionary interview were fired. Over the course of the following ten-or-so minutes, Brand and Paxo volleyed back and forth over subjects ranging from political apathy, to corporate greed, to gorgeous beards. Throughout the interview, Brand repeatedly dodged Paxman's efforts to trivialize his message — at one point Paxman literally called Brand a "very trivial man" — until finally, even the entrenched newsman appeared to relent against the rushing tide of Brand's valid arguments.

On Revolution: “We No Longer Have The Luxury Of Tradition”

October 24, 2013 Russell Brand, www.newstatesman.com Strategize! Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Human Rights, Occupy

The overthrow of the current political system is the only way I can be enthused about politics. I don’t vote because to me it seems like a tacit act of compliance; I know, I know my grandparents fought in two world wars (and one World Cup) so that I’d have the right to vote. Well, they were conned. As far as I’m concerned there is nothing to vote for. I feel it is a far more potent political act to completely renounce the current paradigm than to participate in even the most trivial and tokenistic manner, by obediently X-ing a little box. Total revolution of consciousness and our entire social, political and economic system is what interests me, but that’s not on the ballot. Is utopian revolution possible? The freethinking social architect Buckminster Fuller said humanity now faces a choice: oblivion or utopia.

Tunisia Protests Call For Government Resignation

October 24, 2013 Staff, www.aljazeera.com Resist! Democracy, Government, Tunisia

A coalition of secular opposition parties are demanding the immediate departure of the government, which it accuses of clinging to power. A senior member of Ennahda charged on Tuesday that the opposition was preparing to “destroy” the negotiations between the two sides by staging anti-government protests. About 60 opposition MPs who have been boycotting parliament since the political crisis erupted, also said they had received assurances that the national dialogue would begin with the government announcing its resignation. The Islamist party was heavily repressed under the Ben Ali regime.

Direct Rule By Wall Street Begins With Detroit

October 24, 2013 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com Resist! Democracy, Finance and the Economy, Government, Video

Two items in the news this week put in graphic relief the overarching reality of our times: Wall Street is every day tightening its dictatorial grip on the political and economic life of the United States. The American state and economy are being relentlessly restructured in order to further consolidate the rule of finance capital. In the largely Black urban centers of the nation, the oligarchy intends to rule directly, without the inconvenience of meaningful elections and the other trappings of democracy. Detroit proves the point. This week, a judge begins a bankruptcy court trial that will decide if local corporate dictator Kevyn Orr, the emergency financial manager imposed by the state to protect the interests of Wall Street, will essentially be allowed to sell Detroit’s assets to a British bank in order to pay off the city’s debts to American banks. The pensions of city workers may also be gutted in the process. The city council of Detroit this week voted unanimously against the deal, but that is probably irrelevant.

Fund For Pakistani Drone Victims Going To US-Based NGOs

October 23, 2013 Medea Benjamin, www.mondoweiss.net Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Drones, Government, Human Rights

The peace group CODEPINK recently discovered that every year for the past four years, a pot of $10 million has been allocated for Pakistani drone strike victims. That would make a total of $40 million, quite a hefty sum to divide among a few hundred families. But it appears that none of this money has actually reached them. The Pakistani Civilian Assistance Fund was modeled after the ones that exist in Iraq and Afghanistan, where money was allocated to help alleviate the suffering of civilians harmed by US military operations as part of a strategy to “win hearts and minds.” In the case of Pakistan, where the CIA operates its drones, the money is supposed to go directly to the families of innocent drone victims, or for needs like medical expenses or rebuilding homes.

Banksy Arrested By New York Police?

October 23, 2013 Michelle Young, untappedcities.com Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Government, Police abuse

A few days ago we published an article, Bloomberg Threatens Banksy With Arrest For Public Art, that described how Mayor Bloomberg had spoken out against Banky's public art and approved the use of police force against his "Better Out Than In" artists residency in New York. We also included a photo array of some of Banky's iconic art work. Today, as reported below, a notice was put up his website saying that the exhibit for the day had been cancelled due to police activity. The report below indicates that Banksy and two of his colleagues may have been arrested this morning. From the report: Today Banksy put up on his Instagram the message, “Today’s art has been cancelled due to policy activity.” A commenter wrote, “Friend at 79th precinct said they nabbed banksy and 2 helpers in the act this morning around 6:00 a.m. :( They have them on video at another location too.”

Who Buys the Spies?

October 23, 2013 Thomas Ferguson, Paul Jorgensen, Jie Chen, www.alternet.org Educate! Government, NSA, Privacy

As the storm over surveillance broke, we were completing a statistical analysis of campaign contributions in 2012, using an entirely new dataset that we constructed from the raw material provided by the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenues Service (which compiles contributions from so-called “527”s). In light of what has transpired, our quantitative analysis of presidential election funding invites closer scrutiny, particularly of the finding that we had already settled upon as perhaps most important: In sharp contrast to endlessly repeated claims that big business was deeply suspicious of the President, our statistical results show that a large and powerful bloc of “industries of the future” – telecommunications, high tech, computers, and software – showed essentially equal or higher percentages of support for the President in 2012 than they did for Romney. Though documenting the claim would take us far beyond this post, we believe that the emergence of these new industries is a key factor in transforming the old National Security State into its new, even more sinister twenty-first century model.

How The Resistance Movement Is Changing Politics

October 23, 2013 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Strategize! Corporatism, Government, Occupy

There are early signs of some populist stirrings among a minority in the Democratic Party. It is still a party dominated by corporatism, Wall Street, Clintonism and Obamism but social movements may be creating a zeitgeist in the culture for a new kind of politics. I have my doubts this will end up showing itself inside the two parties, the Democratic Party has a long history of destroying social movements, and I am convinced that if it is going to manifest itself the movement needs to remain independent of the two parties and be like Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said of the two parties of his era " look objectively at both parties and be the conscience of both—not the servant or master of either." At the same time third party pressure must build so that those within the two parties see the results of elections will be impacted by a third party that clearly puts forth an agenda of people and planet before profits.

Privatization Benefits 1%, Public Services Benefit Everyone

October 23, 2013 Paul Bucheit, www.thecontributor.com Educate! Austerity, Corporatism, Finance and the Economy, Government

Individual initiative? Our publicly supported communications infrastructure allows the richest 10% of Americans to manipulate their 80 percent share of the stock market. CEOs rely on roads and seaports and airports to ship their products, the FAA and TSA and Coast Guard and Department of Transportation to safeguard them, a nationwide energy grid to power their factories, and communications towers and satellites to conduct online business. Perhaps most important to business, even as it focuses on short-term profits, is the long-term basic research that is largely conducted with government money. As of 2009 universities were still receiving ten times more science & engineering funding from government than from industry.

Grassroots Campaign To Take Back Chicago From Its Mayor

October 22, 2013 Kari Lydersen, www.inthesetimes.com Resist! Democracy, Education, Government, Organizing

About 1,500 Chicagoans and a lineup of city and state elected officials convened Tuesday night to announce their intention to “take back Chicago” from a city administration they describe as rewarding corporations while punishing working people. A wave of recent cuts has left almost 50 Chicago public schools shuttered, six mental-health clinics closed and thousands of public workers without jobs. According to a report released last week, these cuts have primarily hit Black and Latino neighborhoods, even as majority white and downtown neighborhoods have prospered—thanks in part to the city’s Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, program. TIFs are meant to revive blighted areas by funneling property tax dollars to development projects, but critics see the program as a corporate giveaway, diverting dollars from public coffers to private corporations. Tuesday's event marked the official launch of a campaign by the Grassroots Collaborative, the alliance of 11 neighborhood, housing and labor groups.

Detroit Manager’s Income Padded By Anonymous Corporate Fund

October 21, 2013 Paul Egan, www.lansingstatejournal.com Educate! Corporatism, Government

Gov. Rick Snyder’s controversial NERD Fund will be shut down, a spokeswoman confirmed today. The New Energy to Reinvent and Diversify Fund “had simply become an unnecessary distraction,” said Sara Wurfel, Snyder’s press secretary. “A new fund is being created that will go far above and beyond what the law requires,” Wurfel said in an e-mail. “That will include disclosure of donors and amounts given as well as detailed overview of expenditures by category. Both will be shared and posted online quarterly.” The fund raised about $368,000 in 2012, down from about $1.3 million in 2011, according to reports filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The fund has been controversial because it can accept unlimited corporate donations from anonymous parties.

Brazil: Military Troops Attack People Protesting Oil Reserve Auction

October 21, 2013 Staff, www.revolution-news.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Government

Brazilian security forces and protesters have clashed in Barra da Tijuca, near Rio de Janeiro, where the Brazilian government is auctioning off exploration rights for a huge oilfield on Monday. Members of the National Security Force fired tear gas and rubber bullets to try to disperse some 300 protesters. Several protesters have been injured. President Dilma Rousseff had ordered tight security after violent demonstrations in Rio last week. Local media said a small number of protesters tried to set a car alight while others tried to block cars carrying officials from Brazil’s Mining and Energy Ministry from getting to the hotel where the auction is taking place. “There were bizarre scenes. Riot police firing tear gas and stun grenades, not just against protesters, but also on to the beach, with hundreds of tourists and sun worshippers looking on incredulously,” the BBC’s Wyre Davies reported from Rio de Janeiro.

Monsanto Shills: Government and Corporate Media

October 21, 2013 Mark Karlin, www.truth-out.org Educate! Food and Agriculture, Government, Media, Monsanto

Recently Truthout reposted an article by Belén Fernández that reported on "Monsanto, Rural Debt and the Suicide Epidemic in India" to focus on just one of the stories featured in Censored 2014. Truthout followed up with an interview with Fernández on Monsanto, the corporate mainstream media under-reporting stories such as the suicide epidemic in India and buffoonish commentary on GMOs by the likes of Thomas Friedman. BELÉN FERNÁNDEZ: I think alternative reporting definitely helps publicize certain issues, especially among certain sectors, and sometimes puts issues on the radar for the general public, but it's still often difficult to challenge the authority that the mainstream media commands. One can only hope that the media scene will continue to evolve as the process of reconciling reality with mainstream reporting becomes more and more impossible.

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